Category: games

Battlefleet Gothic gets so much right. The campaign’s story, script, voice acting and appearance is all spot-on for the 40K universe. The 2D battles are challenging and interesting, if still quite unbalanced. The RPG elements are horribly compelling. And its detailed, nebula-filled universe brings the tiny tabletop models to life—before they’re blown into thousands of pieces.

Dark Souls 3 returns the player to the series’ grim world, again tackling the endless problems of the undead peoples of Lothric. Your task this time, as an undead hero, is to defeat the corrupted Lords of Cinder and return them to the throne room that now sits inside the Firelink Shrine. It’s an unusually clear remit for a Dark Souls game, and it’s matched by the game’s revamped mechanics.

I’ve killed these men, many many times. Every character in this French palace is known to me, from the bickering chefs in the basement kitchen, to the magazine editor desperate to stymie her collapsing sales, to the diva show manager to the laconic camera crew at the front of the building, whose report I photobomb. Hitman has turned from the antisocial murder simulator par excellence into Groundhog Day, where your infinite lives allow you to track and poke each and every person’s life.

Trent Oster may have founded BioWare and Beamdog, but the best place to find him isn’t in a high-powered boardroom, a swanky hotel, or on an exclusive beach. Instead, you’ll need to head to the university district in Edmonton, Canada, where you’ll probably find him in the Next Act pub, munching on a peanut butter and bacon sandwich or a ‘Class Act’ burger. If he’s not there, perhaps he’ll be in his office nearby with the rest of the Beamdog team, playing through their latest 5th Edition D&D campaign.

Five years after I first played it, Blow has let go and The Witness is out. There are now got 600+ puzzles and the world has been remodelled inch by inch. And this is the first time I’ve seen it since then. So how does the game live up to the goals of 2011’s Blow? And was it worth the extra $5.2 million he’s spent on it since then…? (Warning: contains mild spoilers).

Far Cry Primal isn’t, on this showing, a smart or an innovative game. It’s definitely more of the same with a new skin, much like Blood Dragon was, but without that expandalone’s cheesy humour. What it does have is a new old world to explore, a visceral proximity to its killings and an unusual, simple story to tell – man’s ascent from prey to predator, first-hand.

Fun! I’m doing a wheelie down a ruined high street at high speed, totally unable to tell where I’m going, while heavily armed North Koreans spray machine gun fire at me. This is the best motorcycle game I’ve ever played and it’s not a motorcycle game. I drop my iron steed out of the wheelie just in time to see my surviving teammate back into the road in front of me. I can’t avoid running him down and I don’t. As his body bump-bumps under my tyres, I berate him for not obeying the Green Cross Code. It’s fine though, as I revive him under heavy fire, get back onto my bike and speed off, ignoring him, the enemies, my other downed pals, and the mission.